


Alys at the Heart of the Earth

by the_alchemist



Category: The Voynich Manuscript
Genre: Alice in Wonderland References, Alternate Universe - Alice in Wonderland Fusion, Astrology, Female-Centric, Gen, Inspired by Alice in Wonderland, Misses Clause Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-21 09:46:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 5,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17041421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_alchemist/pseuds/the_alchemist
Summary: Alys, a maidservant in 1430s England, dreams of learning to read and write. But the only person willing to teach her drives a hard bargain, and the errand she must perform in return draws her through a fantastical world of astrology and alchemy, into a female realm far beneath the earth.Mercuriouser and curiouser. If you've ever wondered what the feminine of 'mandrake' is, whether the way up is the way down, or how bulls feel about certain China-shop-related slanders, then read on ...





	1. Prologue: from the village chronicles of Anduck, writ in the hand of the Curate, in the Year of our Lord 1485.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tsukara (AndThenTheresAnne)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndThenTheresAnne/gifts).



> Thanks to beta reader Z, and apologies for forgetting to put this in at an appropriate time.
> 
> Also apologies to the recipient for the fact this turned into a bit of an unsolicited crossover.

Some two hours after midnight on the third day following the feast of Candlemas, I, having been called from my sleep to bring the sacrament to a merchant who lay dying at the inn, came upon a damsel shivering in the rowan thicket, unclothed but for a thin blanket.

She said that her name was Alys, and that she had come to see the three Holy Sisters who live by St Dunstan's, to bring them a book, which she had about her person, neatly wrapped in linen rags.

The case of the merchant brooking no delay, I took Alys with me to the inn, where I instructed Mistress Joan, the widowed innkeeper, to dress her in fitting attire at the parish's expense.

I prayed for some time over the suffering merchant, whose breath came rasping and whose hands clutched painfully at the sheets, then looked up to see Alys standing in the door to his chamber, now dressed meetly in a homespun kirtle and plain coif. She looked for a moment at the sufferer, then strode boldly forward and laid her hands on his head, saying certain words which I could not hear.

Then one whom I thought would breathe no more breathed softly then, and it was not the peace of death that took him, but the peace of a healthful slumber.

Mistress Joan was then in her sixty-fifth year, yet still hale and of sound mind. When I told her that the merchant would live through the night, she spread a breakfast for me and for Alys, and I bid her join us at table. Alys did not say much, though Mistress Joan made much of her, saying she resembled a friend of her childhood who had gone missing some fifty years ago. At this Alys started, but would not answer any of Mistress Joan's gentle questions about whether her mother or grandmother were a native of Anduck.

After breaking our fast, I took Alys to the house of the Sisters, who welcomed her by name.

The merchant travelled onward a week later, healthier than he had been before he was taken sick.

When I asked the Sisters after their guest, they told me that she had gone away to live a cloistered life with another community, and that I may not see the book, though they swore under oath that it contained no sinful matter.


	2. Chapter 2

Alys had ideas above her station.

That became clear to Joan on Mayday in the year of Our Lord Fourteen Hundred and Thirty.  It was the year both of them had gone into service: Joan at the manor house, and Alys as the physician's maid of all work. Having done their part dancing around the maypole, they sat together eating early strawberries and watching the boys and men do their morris.

'I think Ned Monk wants to pay me court,' said Joan, looking at the muscular blacksmith's son as he waved his handkerchief with a look of intense concentration. 'But I like Harry Cobb better, and I should like to run the inn when his mother and father get too old.' Harry's bell-bedecked white breeches were just a little too tight, and the view was very distracting.

Alys brushed some blossom from her friend's shoulder as she eyed both youths critically, squinting against the bright sun.

'I would not marry a village boy,' she said at last. She popped a strawberry into her mouth and chewed it with care. 'I thought perhaps to marry my master, since he is a widower, but I have decided that he is an unkind man, and that I can do better for myself.'

Joan laughed, a little uncertainly. It was never easy to tell when Alys was in jest. 'Unkind?' she said. 'I hope he does not beat you unjustly?'

'Not at all,' said Alys. 'Even when I burn his bread. Doctor Foxwell is unkind because he will not teach me to read and write.'

The fiddler struck up another tune, and the youths started a new dance, this one more vigorous. Harry danced beautifully, and Ned was having trouble keeping up.

'Why should you want to read and write?' said Joan, her mind mostly on the morris, but feeling she should do her bit to continue the conversation.

'It's how to get on,' said Alys, simply. 'Doctor Foxwell's father was a grocer, not much richer than mine, God rest his soul. But he got on in life because he went to school. So I asked him to teach me because I want to get on too. He laughed. Laughed!'

John shot Joan a grin and a wink, and she gritted her teeth as though that could stop her blushing.

'So today I took one of the books from his shelf,' Alys went on.

If only he would do that jumping bit when he was facing her. She always got a tantalising glimpse of ... Suddenly Alys's words registered, and Joan turned to her friend.

'You did what?' Joan hoped she had misheard.

'To see whether I can figure out the matter for myself.'

Alys reached into her pocket and took out a small volume.

Joan raised her hands to her mouth. She had never seen a book, other than the gospel in St Dunstan's, but she knew them to be as precious as jewels. 'Alys!' she said. 'You must take it back at once, or you will be sent away.'

Alys waved her hand. 'He won't miss it,' she said. Then she gave a small, strangled cry.

The dancers' bells had masked his footsteps. Doctor Foxwell hauled Alys up by the back of her kirtle, and grabbed her wrist firmly.

Joan leapt up at once, frightened for the younger girl, the orphan whom she had always protected like a big sister. 'Please,' she said, looking up at the doctor's furious squinty eyes. 'Please, she was going to return it. Please, you can't–'

But Alys had twisted her hand free and was running toward the woods, still holding the little book.

'Please–' started Joan again, but Doctor Foxwell had started to give chase, moving surprisingly fast on his spindly legs, and shouting 'Hey!' and 'Stop thief!'

Joan stared after them.

'Hey, Joan! Joanie! Are you all right? What happened?'

But she barely noticed even as Harry Cobb tentatively put his hand in hers.


	3. Chapter 3

Alys stopped when she could run no more, stumbling down to sprawl against a log in a woodland clearing. She curled up, wheezing and coughing, then hauled herself to a sitting position to take stock of her position.

She thought she knew the woods well – she and Joan had often played here as children, but she did not recognise this place. Plenty of light came through the sparse canopy, dappling everything with gold, but there were no bluebells. Instead there were small star-shaped red flowers she did not recognise. She heard only the rustle of leaves and birdsong. Good. It seemed her pursuers had given up.

She looked up, trying to tell by the sun how much time had passed, but she could not see it. And when she lowered her eyes, she saw she was not alone.

She scrambled to her feet, staring in horror at the man in front of her. A peddler, by the looks of things, golden haired and blue-eyed, sitting cross-legged in the middle of the clearing, his pack of wares half spread out on a blanket before him. He could not possibly have done that in the few moments she was watching the sky. He must have been there all the time. She gritted her teeth, determined not to let her fear show.

'Greetings,' said the man. 'What do you seek?'

'I have no money,' she said bluntly. That wasn't quite true. She had a few pennies in her pocket, but she would need to husband them well, since – it now dawned on her – she would be unable to go back to Anduck and must seek her fortune elsewhere.

'That is well,' he replied. 'For I need no money. What do you seek?'

She stared at him. 'Do you give your wares for free then?'

'Sometimes,' he replied. 'And sometimes I ask a price, but never in coin.'

'Will you give _me_ something for free?'

'Of course. What would you like?' He held things up one by one: a roll of scarlet silk ribbon, long and wide, as fine as those Squire Henry's daughters wore; an embroidered needlecase; a vial of some purple liquid; a thin, brass-handled dagger.

'What's that?' she asked, pointing to a small wooden chest, fastened with a brass clasp.

'What do you think it is?' asked the peddler.

Alys paused. It looked a little like the box in which Doctor Foxwell kept his pens and ink, and she found herself saying so.

'A good guess,' said the peddler, opening it and holding it out towards her. She saw a bottle of black ink, a sheaf of whitened vellum and three quills that must have been from a very strange goose indeed, for they were scarlet.

'Will you give me that?' she said.

'Certainly.' He held it towards her.

But she drew back. This didn't feel right. 'What's the price?' she said.

'No price. It is a gift.'

'Why?' She scowled at him. 'What's in it for you?'

'Perhaps if I give you this, you will buy something more expensive from me.'

She shook her head uncertainly. 'I have no coin,' she repeated. Then with a sick lurch in her guts it occurred to her what he might want. She shook her head more firmly. 'No,' she said. 'Thank you, but no.'

He made to shut the box and she found herself moving towards it. The ink was so black and the vellum so white. The quills were the reddest things she had ever seen.

Afterwards, she didn't remember how it came to be that she was kneeling down on her heels, opposite him and examining the items one by one. The box itself was carved all over with a fine honeycomb pattern, the clasp was in the shape of a golden bee, and inside everything had its own slot. Underneath the vellum there was another one, which held a tiny paintbox.

She wanted it so very badly. And besides, she told herself, it looked very valuable. And she would need money. With money she could lodge at an inn, she could–

But the peddler was talking again. 'And how did a village maid like you come to learn writing anyway?' he asked. And it all came tumbling out: Doctor Foxwell and the book, and how she had come here.

'What astonishing luck,' the peddler said at last. 'For it just so happens that I am an itinerant teacher of reading and of writing ...'


	4. Chapter 4

It really _was_ astonishing luck, Alys told herself as she went to hunt for a mandrake root, the second of the peddlar's two fees. And an astonishingly good bargain to boot. The lovely writing set she got for free, alongside a sturdy woollen bag to carry it in, now strapped over her shoulder.

The fee for learning to read was Doctor Foxwell's book. She did not want to part with it, but she told herself that it was only a little one – the box and its contents must be worth a hundred times as much, and now she could read she could do anything. She could dress as a boy and go to the university herself and be a better physician than Doctor Foxwell ever was, or she could–

She stopped. This must be the place he meant. A circle of little standing stones on top of a hill just outside the wood. How strange that she had never known this was here.

He had drawn the mandrake plant for her on the first of the vellum sheets, its leaves spiky and almost star-shaped, its roots like a tiny man. She was to pluck the biggest one for him at midnight and bring it back, and then he would teach her to write – a process which, he assured her, would take no longer than the hour it took her to learn reading. And she was to look at the other plants she found here, and draw pictures of them.

There were so many different and strange plants that it took her several minutes to be certain which ones were the mandrakes, but at last she found a patch of them right in the centre. She plucked a couple to be sure of the roots – they really _did_ look like little men – and identified the biggest.

In the meantime, moon was full and the sky clear, so she set to drawing the others, carefully dipping the pen as the peddler had shown her, making the outlines, and then, once they were dry, adding colour.

The bells that chimed were not the churchbells she expected. The first was a tiny one. It made her think of a little mouse holding a little bell, which made her laugh. And for the second chime it was joined by what sounded like an ordinary cowbell. For the third there must have been half a dozen bells, tinkling and clanging almost but not quite together. She jumped up, alarmed, and they were coming from all around her. The fourth chime was like a hundred bells, and the loudest of them was so deep she felt it in her belly. At the fifth she put her hands over her ears because they had started to hurt, but on the sixth she knelt down again, determined to do her duty, and pulled up the largest mandrake before the seventh sounded, as she had been told.

She couldn't pull it with one hand, so instead she seized it with both, leaning back with all her weight until it started to lift, shifting the lesser little mandrakes as it came, shifting the whole ground beneath her feet until all in a rush it was out, and she stumbling backwards holding up the child-sized root by the stem on top of its head.

Cautiously, she peered into the hole she had created. It was bigger than it should have been, wider, and much deeper. She kicked a stone into it and it was many seconds before she heard it hit the bottom of what sounded like an empty well.

She waited for the seventh bell, but it didn't come. There was silence. Total silence.

She turned, and _he_ was there. The peddler. Just outside the stone circle. His blue eyes were blazing and his teeth gritted in fury. 'How dare you?' he said. 'How _dare_ you. Come out at once and let me–' He reached out to grab at her, but as his hand got to just above one of the stones, it went red and blistered like it had been burned. He stumbled back in anguish. 'Come out of there,' he said again.

Alys drew backwards, shaking in terror, but her foot found no hold. And she was falling, falling, falling, on her back, for so long that she knew that when she landed she must surely die.


	5. Chapter 5

Alys blinked upwards. She could see the full moon, impossibly high up, at the end of a tall shaft.

'My, my,' said a kind voice, something like the lowing of an ox. 'And they say that _I_ am a liability in this line of work.'

She was lying on something uneven, uncomfortable. Broken pottery. She picked up a piece: it was very fine pottery, white and almost impossibly thin. Her hands found the bag with the writing box, still strapped around her neck. That at least seemed safe.

As her eyes adjusted to the light – which wasn’t dim as such, just … different – she saw that she was in a large but pleasant room, lined with shelves containing plates, cups, pots and jugs of every size and shape. Most were glazed shining white, and many were decorated with colourful pictures and patterns. It all looked very expensive: the kind of things gentry would use. She swallowed hard, hoping that no-one would expect her to pay for any of it.

She sat up carefully, and brushed a few tiny shards from her hand. She wasn’t hurt, but if anything that made it worse. She couldn’t make herself out to be the victim here.

Then she saw the person who had been speaking. She blinked. He wasn’t so much a person as … She checked her thoughts before articulating them even to herself. No, certainly. His furry head was four times larger than a man’s, and his flaring nostrils were not even slightly human. He was a bull. And yet he was talking like a man ('don't worry, dear, you're all right and that's what matters, plenty more where this came from'), and using his cloven hooves dextrously to pick through the mass of broken pottery to sort that which was beyond repair from that which could still be of use.

'... where this comes from being China, of course. The zodiac will spin me back there in due course and I can ... but I forget my manners. My name is Taurus, and I run the finest China shop in the whole of Underneath.'

'I'm Alys,' said Alys, staring. She had understood hardly any what he had said.

'Would you like a refreshing cup of tea?' asked Taurus. 'You look like you could do with a refreshing cup of tea.'

Alys frowned. 'What's tea?' she said.

'Oh,' said Taurus. 'I am sorry. Where are you from?'

'From Anduck,' she said. He looked puzzled. 'In Wiltshire,' she added. He still looked puzzled. 'England,' she said.

'England,' he repeated. 'Then you should know what tea ...' He paused. 'But perhaps I asked the wrong question. _When_ are you from?'

'It's May the first,' she said.

'Of course it is,' said Taurus, for the first time sounding a little impatient. 'Or around then. That's why I'm at the top. As above, so below, you know. But I mean what year is it?'

'It is the eighth year of the reign of Good King Henry,' said Alys.

Taurus gave a sort of snorting laugh. 'Which one?' he said. 'I believe you have at least eight, all of which are called 'good', though precious few of them were.'

'There are six,' said Alys. 'And our one is certainly good. He is a boy of eight winters old, and his father was Henry the Fifth, who won France for us at Agincourt.

Taurus snorted again. 'I suppose that one _is_ quite good,' he said. 'A pity. Might have worked out for everyone better had he been less so.'

Alys scowled at him, but he offered her a hoof to help her off from the floor, she took it. All the smashed pottery was getting very uncomfortable.


	6. Chapter 6

The chairs were cushioned with silk, and had ornately carved legs which matched those of the low table on which Taurus had placed a silver tray containing more of the delicate white pottery which Taurus called 'China', because apparently it came from a faraway land of the same name. There were two small cups with blue flowers on them, a jug of milk, a bowl with some white cubes and a pair of silver tongs, and a jug with a lid and a strange long spout, from which Taurus poured the hot posset he called 'tea’.

The tea tasted a little bitter, at first, but still very refreshing, and when Taurus told her that the white cubes in the bowl were sugar and that she might add as much as she wanted, she thought it was the most delicious thing she had ever tasted.

'Tell me how you came to be here,' he asked, once she had drunk two cups (they really were _very_ small).

So she told him everything. '... oh,' she said at last. 'The mandrake! Did that fall with me?'

'Yes and no,'  said Taurus, fetching the thing from where it lay discarded near where Alys fell.

'It is here, but it is not a mandrake.' He pointed to a couple of rounded nodules on the root's chest. 'It's a Womanduck. Very rare and special. And a fortunate thing you did not hand it over to that peddler fellow, yes indeed.'

'Why?' asked Alys, sitting up straight and helping herself to more tea. 'Do you know who he is?'

The bull's craggy brows furrowed further. 'I have my suspicions,' he said. 'But you will need to go deeper into the Earth if you want to find out more.’

Alys considered this. She wanted to go home. But she realised with a sinking heart that she had no home. Doctor Foxwell would surely never take her back, and Joan's mother and father, who had taken her in when her own father died could not afford to do so again. 'Deeper?' she said. 'Why? What is there?'

'The Sphere of Ladies,' said Taurus. 'The realm of Mother Earth's own body, where neither man nor male of any other species may go, except that they take with them ...' He gestured delicately to the Womanduck.

'All right,' said Alys, finishing up another cup. 'I will go there, then. How do I get there?’

'Well,' said Taurus. 'Mercury could take you as far as the gate, but I do _not_ think that would be wise. Iris would be a better choice, but she will need an offering. What do you have?' He nodded at Alys's bag.

Alys took out the writing box and opened it to show him. She was loathe to give anything away, but the more she thought about it, the curiouser she became about this Sphere of Ladies. She thought that it must be a very excellent thing to live in a place where there were no men to say that girls should not read or write, or do anything else that pleased them.

'Beautiful,' said Taurus, gesturing to the topmost of the plant paintings she had done while waiting for midnight.

'Yes,' said Alys with some pride.

'Iris loves all colour,' said Taurus. 'To draw her, you must draw her ...'


	7. Chapter 7

Walking across a rainbow was altogether less delightful than Alys had expected. It was very soggy, and she got wet through up to her ankles, her stockings soaked and itchy, and the bottom of her kirtle clinging to her calves, making it hard to keep up with Iris, who was not burdened by clothes of any type, only a set of gauzy, translucent veils, and who had wings to boot.

The goddess did not say very much, and she had a melodious tinkling laugh, which Alys found rather annoying.

Afterwards, Alys could not say how long the journey took, whether minutes, or hours or days, only that it took far longer than she would have liked it to.

The gatehouse to the Sphere of Ladies was big and solid, the wall impossibly high. Beyond it, she could faintly hear laughter and female voices singing.

She walked up to the door, and not knowing what else to do, rapped loudly three times.

No answer. Then, just as she was wondering whether to knock again, a girl about her own age, wearing something like a nun’s habit, in snowy white, answered the door.

‘Yes?’ At first she sounded angry, but when she saw Alys she smiled. ‘Oh, hello! She said. Do you want to come in?’

Alys nodded. But before the girl could stand aside, another older voice tutted. ‘Who is it, child?’

‘It’s alright,’ said the girl. ‘She’s a she.’

A middle-aged woman in red pushed her aside, then looked Alys up and down. ‘ _Are_ you a she?’ asked the woman.

‘Yes!’ said Alys.

The woman gave a curt nod. ‘Come in then, but only into the gatehouse, mind.’

She opened the door, and Alys walked into a room at least as pleasant as the china shop. There were tapestries on the walls, depicting women of all kinds from queens on thrones to huntresses astride strong horses to washerwomen busy beating clothes.

The woman in red and the girl in white took their places on highbacked wooden chairs, on either side of a much older woman, so deeply wrinkled that her face seemed to fold in on itself. This one wore black, and Alys noticed then that their clothes were identical, as though they really were holy sisters, though what kind of holy sister would wear red, Alys could not imagine.

The three sat in a row, looking at Alys, and since there was nowhere for her to sit, she put her hands behind her back and tried to stand up straight.

‘Greetings,’ said the girl, giving Alys a reassuring grin.

‘Greetings,’ said the woman. She no longer seemed quite so haughty and disapproving.

‘Greetings,’ croaked the crone, scowling at her.

‘Greetings,’ said Alys. Then, when they continued staring at her, not saying anything more, continued. ‘I am Alys.’

‘I,’ said the woman in red, ‘am Nun the Wiser.’ She gestured to the old woman. ‘This is Nun the Worse.’

'Nun the Less,' said the young girl.

'I'm Alys,' said Alys. 'Are those really your names? And are you really nuns?'

'You do ask a lot of questions,' said Nun the Less.

'And very profound ones too,' said Nun the Wiser. 'It is good.'

Alys thought her questions were quite ordinary ones, and was about to say so when Nun the Wiser continued. 'I suppose the first part of the answer is to consider what we mean by "real", and what we mean by "name"–'

But Nun the Worse cut her off. 'And the second part is to tell you that real names are too precious to go round handing out willy nilly to silly girls who come knocking with sillier goddesses, holding in their hands things which do not belong to them and of which they do not understand the purpose.' She gestured to the Womanduck.

Nun the Less reached out with one hand, covering her mouth with the other. 'Oh,' she said. 'Is it real? I've never seen one before.'

Nun the Wiser leaned forward. 'It _is_ real,' she said. 'Where did this come from, child?'

And so again, Alys told her story: Joan and Doctor Foxwell, the peddler, the ring of standing stones, the bull in the China shop.

None of the three women interrupted her, but Nun the Worse tutted when Alys told her about Doctor Foxwell saying girls shouldn't read or write, and Nun the Less gasped when the peddler appeared, and turned to Nun the Wiser, who patted her on the arm, while still looking at Alys with her penetrating eyes.

'You have done us a great service,' said Nun the Wiser, once Alys had finished. 'This peddler of yours was nothing of the sort, but a wicked and impertinent male who wants nothing more than to disrupt the peace of our sphere. Certainly, you have earned your right to enter.'

‘Let us see this gift he gave you,’ said Nun the Worse.

Alys handed it over warily, watching gnarled fingers run over the delicate honeycomb pattern of the box.

‘Hexed,’ pronounced Nun the Worse.

Nun the Wiser frowned and peered at it, touched the clasp and then flinched back, as though burned. ‘Bewitched,’ she said. ‘You cannot keep this, child.’

Alys’s heart sank.

‘Oh,’ said Nun the Less, ‘but your pictures!’ She leaned over and took the topmost of Alys’s botanical drawings. ‘Who taught you to draw?

'No-one,' said Alys. 'At least, the peddler taught me how to dip the pen and mix the colours, but–'

Nun the Wiser was shaking her head. ‘Cunning,’ she said. 'So he taught you to read and to draw? Anything else?'

'No,' said Alys. 'He was going to teach me writing in exchange for the mandrake.'

'Well, that at least is a blessing,' said Nun the Wiser. 'Do you still wish to learn? We can teach you.'

'Oh, yes!' said Nun the Less. ‘And we can unhex your lovely box.’ She turned to the older two. ‘We can, can’t we?’

‘We can,’ said Nun the Wiser.

'But there will be a cost,' said Nun the Worse.


	8. Chapter 8

Thus it was that Alys became the Chronicler of the Sphere of Ladies. The three sisters took turns as her guides, through twisting caverns and pathways, past pools and rivulets and smooth tubes that ran with crystal water.

'The veins and arteries of the Earth,' said Nun the Wiser.

'Her tears for the sorrows of women,' said Nun the Less.

'Even the Earth must piss,' said Nun the Worse.

The place was vast, and well peopled with women, who went about their strange business with solemnity or merriment, as the occasion warranted. Many waded in the water in something like a ritual, something like a dance, something like the motion of a skilled and practised artisan.

Alys faithfully drew all she saw, and wrote down what it meant.

There are two strange facts about this. The first, and more trivial, is that she did not think it in the least odd that the women were entirely unclothed, and in fact did not notice until it was pointed out to her after her return. (She _did_ notice that one person participating had certain physical features she had thought exclusive to the male sex, but Nun the Wiser smiled and said the sphere was restricted to those who are women in their hearts, not necessarily in their other physical features.)

The second is that she could not speak of the purpose of the women's movements. 'I've written it down right there,' she would say, pointing to her manuscript. 'Just read it and you will understand.' She never did admit in all the long years after her return that she wrote in anything other than the plainest of English.

Her return.

Alys maintained that she could not speak of how long she spent in the Sphere of Ladies, because 'time works differently there'. This is borne out by the strange fact of her reappearing fifty years after her disappearance not having aged a day. Yet it is difficult to believe that she had no sense of whether her work took days or decades.

In any case, time came when she announced to the nuns her decision to return to the surface. Having learned many profitable secrets during her sojourn, she no longer doubted her ability to earn a living as an independent woman, anywhere she might go.

The nuns, being unable to persuade her to stay, explained that as Heraclitus tells us, the way up is the way down, and so she must join the women in one of vein channels to journey to the heart of the Earth.

So she carefully packed up her things, bid farewell to the nuns, and did exactly that.


	9. Chapter 9

The Hart of the Earth was a white stag, big as a horse, with a gentle, noble face, and soft, velvety fur that Alys longed to stroke.

'Above?' he said. 'Why would you want to go _there_?'

'I'm tired,' said Alys. She realised at once that she had neither slept nor missed sleep since coming underground. 'I want to go home.'

'If you're tired,' said the Hart, 'then come and sleep'. He frisked his little tail, and Alys gave way at once to her desire to rest against his warm, cushioned flank.

Then, Alys dreamed.

She dreamed of the peddler, shaking his golden curls, his blue eyes bright with laughter. 'Come away with me,' he said.

Alys shook her head.

He looked at her more closely. 'Ah,' he said. 'I see you have my mandrake for me. Give it to me and I will not only teach you to write, I will give you wealth beyond imagining.' He took a purse from his belt and tipped out the contents, and endless stream of gold coins.

Alys smiled. 'No,' she said.

His eyes hardened then and his brows furrowed. 'You leave me no choice,' he said, and he drew a broadsword, which he held in both hands.

But she was ready for him. She took out her writing box. He smirked. ‘My gift to you,’ he said. ‘You think I would allow it to hurt me?’

Alys only smiled as the peddler raised the sword. As Nun the Less had shown her, she held up the sheaf of vellum and used it to block the blow. The sword shattered into a thousand pieces, which turned into bees which swarmed off.

Growling, the peddler lunged for her, but quick as a flash, she threw one of the red feather quills at him like a dart, the way Nun the Wiser had taught her, and it stuck in his shoulder. He staggered backwards.

Before he could regain his composure, she popped the stopper out of the ink bottle and threw the dark liquid over his face. Nun the Worse hadn’t given her any lessons. ‘If you can’t work out for yourself what to do with it, you’re not worth the teaching.’

As the ink hit, the man began to dissolve, like nothing so much as the sugar in the tea.

And then Alys woke up.

There was frost on the ground. She hadn't felt cold since ... since ... She blinked. A man was standing above her. A clergyman, by his garb. How long had it been since she had seen a _man_?

She remembered the last words the Nun the Less had whispered in her ears. 'Goodbye, Chronicler. Bring us our manuscript once you are back above. You can find us in all the places betwixt and between, those which are neither one thing nor another.

‘I’m here to see the Holy Sisters,’ said Alys.


End file.
